The Royal Ballet’s Masterclasses raise the curtain on the rehearsal process, allowing you to see ‘behind-the-scenes’ action. The dancers rehearse a work under the guidance of their teacher, to the accompaniment of a pianist, and before the audience’s very eyes – so that everything has a ‘fly on the wall’ feel.

Even Monica Mason was present at the ‘Agon’ Masterclass on Thursday 15 October. A hushed silence overcame the audience when she entered the studio, immediately followed by self-aware laughter. And there were more laughs to come with stager Patricia Neary’s great wit, energy and humour. Who better to rehearse Balanchine’s masterpiece than one of the first people to dance it? Neary has taught the piece for forty years and she recounted numerous amusing anecdotes about her experiences of working with ‘M. B’, as she affectionately calls Balanchine.

As you’d expect, Neary has very high expectations – and always tells it how it is. ‘It’s not spectacular’, she says to one of the dancers about a particular step just performed. Pat, as she is known in the ballet world, consistently corrects the dancers during the class and gets them to repeat anything that is not totally right. This is the kind of perfectionism that produces the first-rate performances we see on the main stage. And dancers Yuhui Choe, Melissa Hamilton, Johannes Stepanek, Brian Maloney and Eric Underwood don’t seem to mind. In fact, they seem to have great admiration for her. Pat’s passion and enthusiasm for her work is infectious – and this extends beyond the dancers. When Johannes Stepanek gets a step right after Pat’s corrections, there were shouts of ‘yeah’s from the audience and lots of clapping.

Jane Bentham

Agon will be in performance as part of a triple bill with Wayne McGregor's Limen and Glen Tetley's Sphinx from 4 November 2009.

The Sleeping Beauty has a special place in The Royal Ballet's repertory. It was the "statement ballet" chosen to inaugurate the Company's new headquarters at the Royal Opera House at the end of World War II. The current production, which returned to the stage last Friday, revisits this historical post-war classic and reproduces the lavish designs and beautiful costumes designed in 1946 by Oliver Messel, who re-imagined this Russian ballet classic with plenty of British flair.

With the grandeur and opulence of the Baroque reinterpreted through a pastel costume palette spread over 100 intricately designed tutus (more than any other ballet in the current repertory), The Sleeping Beauty is a must for ballet costume lovers. Synonymous with classical ballet, the tutu consists of a skirt that skims over the upper tight with multiple sewn in layers of tulle nets overlaid with sequins and other embellishments.

Every ballet company has their own costume design tradition and if you look closely at The Royal Ballet's tutus you will notice how they differ from the Russian flatter, "pancake" tutus. You might also note that extra frills are added to cover the underneath of the costume whereas other companies might opt for a simpler, leotard-style, bottom finish. For extra support these tutus also contain an inner basque on which the base sits and which joins in with the outer basque (or bodice). All these details mean extra work, weeks of sewing and months of planning ahead.

When this production was first revived in 2006 for The Royal Ballet's 75th anniversary, costume archives and records had to be carefully studied. Over the years the original 1946 Messel designs had undergone multiple alterations and customizing to accommodate new materials, different casts, none of which had been properly recorded. This meant long hours of labour putting tutus in chronological order and tracking design sources. Original costumes and patterns were brought from the ROH Collections store and used as a template for recreating some of the most iconic costumes (such as Aurora's pastel pink tutu from Act I) or as a basis for redesigning those costumes which looked overly dated.

For a closer study of The Sleeping Beauty costume evolution you can take a tour of the ROH Collections Online. This sizeable collection includes over 200 tutus, headpieces or other costumes for the 1946 and 1968 productions. You can see some of our favourites here:

Ravel's vibrant, yet elegant score captures Concepcion's frantic efforts to find a worthy lover among an unlikely list of candidates – poet, banker and muleteer. Keeping all three apart is difficult enough without the added fear of being caught out by her clockmaker husband Torquemada. Will Concepcion succeed? Only time, and a pair of clocks, will tell...

In Florence, meanwhile, there's a corpse in the bed and an unwanted will in the cupboard. What will the greedy relatives of the not so dearly departed Buoso Donati do? Reluctantly call on the 'lowly' Gianni Schicchi of course. In Puccini's only comedy we are treated to a master rogue at work as Schicchi impersonates a dying man and double crosses the grasping relatives for the sake of his daughter's happiness.

With astute direction from Richard Jones, gloriously vivid designs by John Macfarlane and Nicky Gillibrand, wonderful casts led by Ruxandra Donose (Concepcion) and Thomas Allen (Gianni Schicchi), and conducting duties shared between Messrs Pappano and Griffiths you are cordially invited to feast on music and laughter.

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http://www.roh.org.uk/news/networking#commentsMon, 26 Oct 2009 11:34:44 +0000Royal Opera Househttp://blog.roh.org.uk/?p=336I attended the East of England Tourism (EET) Conference last Thursday, at Newmarket Racecourse. The Chief Executive of EET reported on a positive year with the so-called 'staycation' market benefiting the region. He also spoke about the growing cluster of cultural centres (see http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/regions/east/) that is developing in the East of England, including the Royal Opera House Production Park, and expressed enthusiasm for these centres finding ways to work together. This is certainly an enthusiasm shared by all of us involved with the Production Park.
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